


Evermore

by HikariHM



Category: Pocket Monsters: X & Y | Pokemon X & Y Versions
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Based on a Taylor Swift Song, Depression, Dreams, Grief/Mourning, Guilt, Heavy Angst, Hurt No Comfort, Letters, M/M, Near Death Experiences, Self-Reflection, This is what happens when Taylor surprise drops albums, Withdrawal, my hand slipped, song: evermore (Taylor Swift), tldr this is very sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-13
Updated: 2020-12-13
Packaged: 2021-03-11 00:01:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,966
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28045842
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HikariHM/pseuds/HikariHM
Summary: He got a peculiar feeling that this pain would be for evermore.A feeling that crossed his heart, stabbing him each time deeper and deeper, driving him insane into all the awful things he did to himself out of that sadness and desperation that his frail, cold body still resented.
Relationships: Fleur-de-lis | Lysandre/Platane-hakase | Professor Augustine Sycamore
Comments: 3
Kudos: 12





	Evermore

**Author's Note:**

> I listened to Evermore the song by Taylor Swift ft Bon Iver from her newest album and I HAD to write this because it screamed Augustine Sycamore for me. So, enjoy the angst parade that ensues!

When he took his eyes away from the fire for a second, it was to stare at the window, getting lost in the view of the smooth snowflakes falling and falling outside, coldly, silently. 

And then, he kept feeding the fireplace, fueling it with more wood, more useless things such as old report sheets getting consumed by the flames.

From somewhere inside the cottage he listened to his Holo Caster beep with the special tone he had assigned to Sina (with a mind so clueless as his, it was better off to assign tones to different people), and he almost could already know what this was all about since the device beeped three times in a row more later, quickly.

It surely must have been Sina telling him that the Christmas tree was already settled, to then attach some pictures of herself, Dexio, Serena, Shauna, Tierno, Trevor and Diantha all helping to decorate it and the lab. 

He was sure that later that day, he would receive pictures of all of them having dinner together, all wearing festive sweaters in cafes.

December always was like that, and maybe in another time he would had also been wearing an ugly sweater (if he hadn’t gotten rid of them) while decorating his lab and offering everyone hot cocoa, but... maybe he was feeling too unmoored this year.

Too much.

But there were some things he owed to himself, no matter how festive the times were.

And so, he stood, not to reply to the texts or even check them out, no, instead, from a messenger bag he took out another bag, made up from black plastic, and took a large bunch of letters between his hands.

Some had neat penmanship, fancy colors, others... were messy, stained, dirty. However, all of them shared the same name at the top, all of them had been written for the very same person. 

He threw the first one into the fire, and watched it consuming each of his words, like it was an avid reader thirsty for the darkest details of his failed relationship.

Painfully, he threw three more.

The fifth... it was hard to not read it when it was all in red ink, when all it had written over and over were curses, when it was full of lines like: “ _fuck you, I hope you die, I wish you the worst of the worst, you are a motherfucker, I hate you, I hate you, fuck you._ ”

He threw this hoping the fire could erase his pettiness, erase those wishes he must had been more careful when he wished them in the hasty ire of the moment, to see if this made him feel less guilty, less like all of this was his fault, his crime.

Yet, the pettiness didn’t stop there.

There was a letter he didn’t get to deliver, out of all those letters he just wrote as venting meaning to be forever under his desk, this had been written with all the purpose to be sent.

And he got this sickly feeling, twisting his loins.

“ _I know that it’s over, but I don’t need whatever you call ‘closure’, don’t treat me like I’m some uncomfortable situation that needs to be handled, I know it’s fake, I know you don’t mean this and that you, as always, are only acting on behalf of your public image, that being in bad terms with me doesn’t look pretty before all your stupid friends, and I don’t need to forgive you or whatever, I’m doing fine like this, if you think these feelings are in any way bordering my life you have to stop being so condescending. I’m fine. I’m fine without you, don’t try to smooth me-_ ”

That happened right before he knew that closure was actually meant to be a genuine seek for forgiveness before saying goodbye, that it had been meant to definitely close it all up, as then, the other protagonist of the story would suddenly disappear from the narrative.

And a tear slid from his eye as he threw this one into the fire, awful words he didn’t, fortunately or unfortunately, got to ever say.

And he hated it, he hated to be crying again with his chest pinching and his body feeling weak, he hated that this had been going on since July, that he had spent months and months being down and that these tears still didn’t seem to dry anytime soon.

The dread started to climb him again, to crawl up his back, to breath on his ear. 

He remembered the first time he got this horrible, unescapable feeling.

It was right after Lysandre fired the Ultimate Weapon, when he thought he would be catching his death, to turn out everyone else had survived but him.

When he received the news of his suicide (because that was the right word to call it, even if it was harsh to admit, even if everyone liked to handle it like a villainous plan karmically going wrong), and saw people giving up on even finding his corpse, when he made some sense of all that happened, of the distance, of the breakup...

He got a peculiar feeling that this pain would be for evermore.

A feeling that crossed his heart, stabbing him each time deeper and deeper, driving him insane into all the awful things he did to himself out of that sadness and desperation that his frail, cold body still resented.

The ugly scar on his hand, matching with the one of his shoulder, torso and scalp, a nose that still ached a bit if he touched it in certain way, were all the unerasable proofs of this punishment he inflicted on himself.

He lost it one day. The pain possessed him like a demon. He drove away from Lumiose City without telling anyone, leaving all his work stranding, all his researches unresolved, all his replies unsent, his Holo Caster on airplane mode.

He spent all his nights in Coumarine, drinking, drinking himself to sleep, drinking, partying, getting high, drinking, getting in strangers beds unprotected, touching and being touched by bodies the drunkenness didn’t even let him remember, drinking barely edible substances because the average drinks weren’t strong enough to numb him anymore, dancing on the borderline between being dangerously drunk and too hungover, unable to tell whether it was day or night.

And one day, when his body said enough and he collapsed in the floor, he dreamt for the first time in an unsettling while.

In this dream, he had been in his bed, waking up to the sunshine after realizing his nap had lasted a bit too much. And before he could open his eyes, he felt a soft, sweet kiss landing to his forehead, a hand fondly caressing his cheek.

“Augustine...” he would say his name with care and listen, as if repeating it too many times could get it wasted. 

As if he still didn’t have to just tolerate him. As if he still loved him, as if— as if he never stopped loving him with that passion proper from him.

And Augustine would open his eyes, to the view of those ocean blue eyes still loving him, and he’d shed some tears for Lysandre to kiss every single one of them.

“I’m alright,” he said, sublimely, as if reading his mind, as if acknowledging all this mess and grief. “Don’t worry for me, I’m alright.”

But Augustine couldn’t stop sobbing his name, like a baby holding on to the warmth of their mom.

“Lysandre...”

“Everything will be alright...”

“Lysandre...”

And he woke up to the sunlight demanding him to open his eyes, to rise up, to wipe his sleepy tears.

Reminding him that Lysandre was dead, cold under all that rubble, cold and gone, colder and more gone than him. That this all had been just a silly dream, that Lysandre’s love was doomed to only be a dream from now on.

And suddenly Augustine seemed to realize what he had been doing now that the drunkenness had wore off and he was alone with his hangover and an endlessly beeping phone that seemingly had received some signal somehow.

He got up, sobbing, and picked it up to hundreds of texts from everyone.

“ _Professor, where are you?_ ”

“ _Professor, please, answer!_ ”

“ _Augustine, where the fuck are you?_ ”

“ _Professor, are you in danger?_ ”

“ _Augustine, please._ ”

“ _Professor, was there any issue with the documents you were going to mail me?_ ”

“ _Let us help you._ ”

“ _Serena is already looking for you, please, if you see this come back, we won’t get mad, just- come back._ ”

“ _Hey, prof, I’ve got some questions about my Pokédex, is there any chance I could meet you at your lab?_ ”

“ _I’m going to report you missing, Augustine. I rather be making a mistake that let this loose in case you are actually in danger._ ”

“ _Professor, could I have the reports you promised to send 5 days ago?_ ”

“ _Hello, Augustine, I know it’s been a long while since we lasted talked let alone saw each other, but I was wondering how you were doing, dear? You know you can always talk to me._ ”

“ _Professor, call as soon as you see this._ ”

“ _Sycamore, go back to Lumiose, everyone is worried for you, whatever thing is going on we can solve it together, just, go back._ ”

And he began bawling at the mess he made. At the way he ruined everything for everyone for being so negligent, for only knowing to get things wrong.

He had to go back. To send those reports, to finish all his work, to show he wasn’t a failure, to fix this, to stand to his titles, to show he wasn’t useless, to show he was fine, to demonstrate how he wasn’t drowning in depression for the most infamous man in Kalos. He had to let everyone know Lysandre hadn’t mean shit to him. He had to go back.

And he got in his car, bottle in hand, and drove as fast as he could; there was no more time to lose. 

And on the radio they decided to played that song Lysandre would always sing on top of his lungs.

And he tried to blur the pain, to erase it if he wanted to get in time back to Lumiose, so he grabbed his bottle from the passenger seat now empty and began to drink and drink from it until his tear stained eyes couldn’t focus on anything anymore, and this pain became so consuming, so deep, so burning, that he hit the pedal hard in a straight line, until his bottle was empty, and from the glove box he took that medicinal alcohol bottle he saved up in there for any Pokémon that could be hurt in the road and drank directly from it, his insides feeling like getting destroyed.

Until this was too much and he absolutely blacked out.

Woke up briefly to a crashing noise, to the glasses piercing his flesh, to his noise bleeding, to his bones breaking despite the air bags.

And in the half conscious shock of this moment as alcohol had him all numbed, he found solaceon on the thought that maybe if he died here in a car crash against something he hoped hadn’t been another car, this would get him close to Lysandre again, that he’d be meeting him in whichever hell people who unconsciously committed suicide went to. 

But next time he woke up he did it to blinding white lights, to people in green and blue uniforms, to the shame of all Kalos knowing now that he was a suicidal alcoholic, to people feedbacking with the harshest of truths.

He couldn’t get over Lysandre. He couldn’t make sense of his death. He still loved him madly. He still couldn’t let go, he still was aching and mourning and in tremendous grief. He was down, so down, ever since he died. He couldn’t stop loving Lysandre, he couldn’t stop aching, he couldn’t stop blaming himself. He couldn’t stop this.

And when he watched his broken bones, his nose tapped to prevent it from bleeding more, all those wounds on his body, even if he had survived an awful accident product of his alcoholic shock that passed him out and sent him to crash with a wall, even if his breathing now was a miracle, he got this peculiar feeling, heavier than ever;

That pain he was feeling, rotting his insides and his sanity, making him want to be gone and never be back, would be for evermore.

Even if people were nice to him, if media showed some respect to his pain and refrained from going around there selling the news of his diagnose, even if all the league members took care of him, even if the kids helped him with his recovery, even if he was taking now his medication, even if he was now attending Alcoholics Anonymous, the pain still lingered there, like a bad perfume, like a phantom, and he couldn’t stop going back in his paces to see in which one it all had gone wrong, he couldn’t stop replaying it all in his head to always pause in the moment in which Lysandre died, in which he simply took his life away and stopped existing, because this world, _him_ , hadn’t been enough to suffice Lysandre, not at all. 

That was why he kept retreating, withdrawing himself from social situations. He still was too numbed, too not ready to go back to the actual world.

And resignedly, everyone accepted it.

And that was why he was here, faraway from everyone, in this hiding spot Lysandre once showed him when he told him about his childhood years and this little cottage he would run away to when he felt so overwhelmed.

Burning down their story. A key part of Lysandre’s story.

Or maybe sending him signs this way, since fire always remembered him of Lysandre.

And now it was done… that fire had read his entire story and erased every proof of his pettiness… he let it die down, even if it was going to freeze him alive inside that cottage.

And the fire was gone. Like Lysandre. Burning too bright, and from one second to another dying down, taking away the warmth and safety with them, leaving behind them only the ashes of what it all could had been.

And Augustine collected all the ashes in a tray, and headed to the door without even caring to get his shoes back on, no; he was willing to let himself feel everything he was supposed to feel now, call it the frost, the hardwood floor, the snow, the endless pain, the regret, the helpless mourn, whatever.

The chilly wind roared back at him, making his entire body shake violently, his skin shiver, his lips go blue, his feet get numbed, freezing.

But again. He’d feel it all, he wouldn’t be alcoholizing his brain into not feeling nothing at all but senseless pain. He’d feel it all in his skin, he’d move through it all, sober. After all, if he could feel it, if he could remember it, if he struggled to endure it, it was a good sign.

And so, he threw the ashes at the wind, watching some helplessly falling right at his feet, others spreading, others flying away, and others being consumed by the snow soaking them.

Maybe it was the different karma all those kinds of words had to face.

Catching his breath, catching his death, he repressed a sob, brushed his own black hair lovely, showing himself some affection, some respect, and then, after a long while, whispered to himself.

“I forgive you, Augustine. I forgive you. It’s okay. It’s okay now. He knows it’s okay. It’s not your fault, he wouldn’t have blamed you, you are doing great and- this wasn’t your fault.”

And another tear fell from his eye, as his lips threatened to stop working, but with a thin thread of voice he talked to the air.

“There was a reason for me to survive, wasn’t there?” He sighed deeply. “You know I’m stubborn, that is hard to shove such truths through my thick skull, but I’m trying everyday to live as hard as I can, because this is the only way I can pay any tributes to you now.”

He wasn’t only talking now to the Lysandre he had known, to the man that once had loved him and then broke his heart, no;

He was also talking to that kid that years ago would be there, hiding from the world he tried hard to not hate, finding comfort in this silence, in this isolation, in this snow falling, making him shiver violently yet reminding him that this was the sign of him being alive, alive and burning like the blazing flame he was.

And…

With a wind blow bringing some snowflakes to his direction, something shifted and finally seemed to make sense.

He had to stop for a second. Catch his breath. 

He wasn’t sure. He couldn’t be sure if this was for real, but…

For a second, he had a feeling so peculiar that maybe this pain of his heart, his body, his dignity, his soul, wouldn’t be for evermore. 

He knew it wouldn’t be gone anytime soon. But… 

Maybe it could go away eventually. Maybe if he worked a bit more on loving himself the way he was… with the patience and kindness he would love to receive, with the patience and trust that once Lysandre had offered, and remembered to remember often enough to, as he said, live as hard as he could, maybe...

Maybe he could actually get better from this.

And only maybe…

That pain wouldn’t be for evermore.

**Author's Note:**

> It’s been a looooong while since I last posted in this tag but I’m glad to come back with his, since this little work flowed so naturally out of my mind, it didn’t feel like I was writing it at all, no, I was being led by the plot itself, and- this was what I was missing so much about writing about these two :)
> 
> In all honesty, I hadn’t been feeling much in the perfworld mood these last months, and I was kinda resenting it but at the same time very resigned about the matter, but Taylor just dropped this jewel of an album, and many, many songs sounded like prompts for me, staring off with this one :) so if you are a Taylor stan like me, you might have noticed all the little references throughout the whole work :)
> 
> I also wanna add that— the narrative about Augustine getting blinded by grief and losing himself to alcohol and car crashing as a result of all his wrong decisions, was the plot of another WIP, WIP I never really knew how to ground down, handle or finish, until I started thinking about it as a scene to go along with this song and, there it was, I had the perfect way to narrate it and deliver it.
> 
> This thing was VERY whimsical written, but Taylor being whimsical with her music inspires me to write whatever I want, however I want to, and pushing my own timings and “schedules” aside for a lil while. So. Yeah. All this being said, I hope you all had enjoyed reading this work as much as I ADORED working on it.


End file.
